Growing up poor can leave its mark, but perhaps it doesn't have to be that way.
A new study out today finds that kids who grow up in families near or below the United States' federal poverty level have less gray matter in certain, crucial parts of their brains. The study also links those brain disparities to differences in the kids' performance on tests of language, math ability, and general intelligence. In other words, the study gives us something physical to blame for a pattern researchers have long known—that poorer children tend to get worse grades and to score lower on standardized tests, including IQ tests, compared to their richer peers. Those differences can carryinto adulthood, making adults who grew up in poor families likely to earn less money themselves.
This study isn't even the first to find physical differences in the average brains of kids who grow up in poorer and richer families. At first blush, all this sounds like rough news for low-income families. But there's room for change. Unlike eye color or face shape, there's scope for influencing how a kid's brain develops as she grows, whether that means better nutrition or better school programs. Overall, the research on kids' socioeconomic status and their brains underscores how important it is to develop programs that give poorer kids a more level playing field.
[For more of this story, written by Francie Diep, go to http://www.psmag.com/health-an...rty-childrens-brains]
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